Blue Eyes and Other Teenage Hazards (14 page)

“You won’t lose me.”

“You’re my baby, my daughter. You’re the only one I’ve got.”

“I know.”

She pulled away from me to look at my face. “You know?”

“Well, I’d noticed there wasn’t anyone else around the house.”

She laughed and then took a deep breath. “I don’t expect you to understand this—to understand what it’s like to be a mother.” She touched my hair lightly, pushing a strand away from my face. Her eyes lingered on mine. “The first time I held you in my arms . . . I’d just been through labor. I was exhausted; but it was all I could do to keep myself from leaping off the hospital bed so I could hold you while they tested you to make sure everything was all right. I would have walked through fire for you.” Her smile wavered. “In fact, I think I did walk through fire for you tonight.”

“Yeah, sorry the police officers said all that stuff to you.”

“I haven’t acted like it, but I know you’re a good kid.” She kissed the top of my head. “This is what infertility does to a person. One thing went wrong, and suddenly I saw my entire parenting career as ineffectual. I saw . . .” She stared past me into the darkness. For a few moments I sat and felt the silence around us. Then she said, “I used to want other children so badly. Every time we tried and failed, I held onto you tighter. I guess I’ve never been able to let go.” She put her hand over her face, then lay back down on the bed and cried again.

I didn’t know what to do. I had never seen her like this before. “It’s okay,” I said. “You won’t lose me.” She seemed so fragile, so out of control.

Dad came and sat down on the bed beside us. I hadn’t noticed him coming in and didn’t know how much of our conversation he’d heard. He took Mom in his arms, and she cried onto his shoulder. “It’s all right,” he told me. “She’s not crying about you. She’s crying for the children we couldn’t have.”

I didn’t understand. “What children?”

“Go to bed,” Dad said. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

But Mom lifted her head. “No, it’s all right. She needs to stay and talk with us, or she’ll think I’m having a nervous breakdown.” She wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand. “About once a year something sets me off, and I cry hysterically whether I need to or not. It’s another side effect of infertility.”

“I didn’t know it upset you so much.”

Mom took a tissue from her nightstand. “There was no point in telling you. You can’t do anything to change it.”

“You’re a wonderful daughter,” Dad said, “and you make us happy.”

Mom tried to smile, but didn’t quite manage. “You have to understand this about me—after all these years, my arms still ache every time I see a baby. I don’t look at pregnant women. I go out of my way to avoid the baby section in the department stores. The pain doesn’t end. It just resurfaces at each different stage of life.”

I didn’t know what to say. I got choked up myself. I thought of all the times I’d complained to my parents about being an only child and how it must have hurt them. Why hadn’t I ever seen it before?

Mom gave me a hug. “I didn’t mean to make you sad, honey. You don’t have to feel bad. We’re the luckiest parents alive because we have you.”

I took several shaky breaths in an attempt to regain composure. “Why didn’t you adopt?”

“We thought about it,” Dad said.

“We still think about it sometimes,” Mom added. “But, it’s just . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she crinkled the tissue in her hand, looking down at it instead of me. “We tried for so many years to get pregnant after we had you. For five years, we went to doctors. When the pregnancy test finally came back positive, we were so happy. We picked out names. We painted and wall papered the den into a nursery. You went up to complete strangers and told them you were going to be a big sister.”

Mom stumbled over her words now. “When I found out I had to have the hysterectomy, I couldn’t go on anymore. It was as if heaven itself had pronounced we shouldn’t have any more children. I couldn’t face the prospect of trying for another child, of getting my hopes up again. I couldn’t even walk past the den without mourning the one I’d lost. I just locked the door, and we didn’t use the room for six months.” She paused. “I don’t suppose you remember that, do you?”

“I remember you being in the hospital; that’s all.”

“You were little.” She smiled sadly. “Do you know what you wanted to call the new baby? Thumper if it was a boy and Flower if it was a girl.”

“You watched a lot of Bambi,” Dad said.

I don’t know what made me say it, but the words, “I think you should adopt,” came out of my mouth.

Mom said, “Do you?”

“Yes.”

“We’re too old.”

“No you’re not. Elise’s mom is having a baby and she’s older than you.”

“Elise’s mom is a normal person.”

“So are you.”

“Elise’s mom doesn’t have the social-services judge decide whether she’s fit to parent or not.”

“You’re great parents. I’ll vouch for you.”

Mom gave me another hug. “We’ll think about it. But now it’s nearly—” she glanced over at the clock, “morning, and we all need to get some sleep. It’s been a long night.”

“All right.” I gave them both a kiss. Before I left their room, I turned back to them. “If you decide to adopt, I’ll tell strangers I’m going to be a big sister.”

I could tell Mom smiled even in the dark. “I do trust you, Cassidy. I’ll try not to hold onto you so tightly.”

* * *

By the time I pulled myself out of bed the next day, it was noon. After I’d showered and eaten, I texted Elise to see how she was. She didn’t answer. I figured her parents had confiscated her phone, so I texted Josh and asked the same question.

He texted back: I’m about to walk the dog. Meet me outside.

Yesterday I wouldn’t have told my parents what I was doing. I would have made up some other excuse to leave the house. Today I put on my coat and grabbed a pair of gloves. “I’m going to go talk to Josh.”

Mom glanced up from her laptop. I knew she wanted to question me about how long I’d be gone and what I’d be doing. She probably also wanted to throw in some instructions about dressing warmly, but she just said, “Okay.” I smiled and left.

Josh hadn’t said where to meet him, so I started down the sidewalk toward his house. A thin layer of snow covered the ground, sparkling in the sunshine and making everything seem clean and picturesque, renewed.

I was almost to Josh’s house, when I ran into Samantha. I didn’t usually see her outside, but she was walking my direction wearing a parka that framed her face so perfectly she looked like a model for a ski magazine.

I wondered if Josh always walked his dog at this time and if Samantha had coincided her stroll to run into him.

When she got close, she smiled in that evil cheerleader sort of way. I could tell she already knew about Elise and me getting hauled down to the police station last night. I met her gaze without flinching anyway. “Hi, Samantha.” She stopped instead of walking past me. “Hi, Cassidy. How’s your weekend going?”

“Oh, average.” I made a mental note to call all my friends when I got home. I wanted them to hear the story from me before they heard it on the sour grape vine. “How about you?”

“Well, I’m keeping out of trouble.”

“Great.” That about summed up everything I had to say to Samantha.

I caught sight of Josh then. Goliath was straining on his leash, pulling him toward us. “Heal,” Josh said, but it didn’t do any good.

Apparently Samantha and I looked interesting, or perhaps smelled tasty.

“Hi,” Josh said when he reached us.

“Hi,” Samantha and I said at the same time. We glanced at one another then back at Josh. He nodded at Samantha, but motioned for me to follow him. “Come on, Cassidy, let’s go talk.”

I refrained from smiling triumphantly at Samantha and went with him.

When we were out of earshot, I asked, “How’s Elise?”

“Trying to shake her hangover.”

“Your parents picked her up?”

“Yeah. She’s grounded for a month. My parents also decided they need more quality time with her so they’ve promoted my younger brother to head babysitter and she’s going to pick up some shifts at the store.”

“That’s quality time?”

“It will be for a while.” He shrugged. “They’re making it a priority to spend time with her. That’s the important thing.” He titled his head, studying me. “Did you get in a lot of trouble?”

“A lot would be an accurate description.”

“How long are you grounded for?”

“At first it was for forever, but then my parents reduced the charges to a stern lecture.” Josh pulled Goliath away from a piece of trash in the street. “When I talked to Elise this morning, I told her you’d be in it deep with your parents.

Do you know what she said? She said it was my fault. Mine. If I hadn’t broken your heart, she wouldn’t have had to play matchmaker at the party.

She won’t accept the least bit of responsibility for her part in it.” Goliath tried to investigate some shrubbery near a house, and Josh pulled him back onto the sidewalk. No wonder Josh had nice biceps. He didn’t need to lift weights. He wrestled a mammoth dog every day.

“I’ve thought about what you said last night,” Josh continued. “We do always come to Elise’s rescue. I’ve done it for years. So have my parents.

Our whole family life spins around her. Now she’s got you into it too. But what are we supposed to do—just sit back and let her screw up her life?” I put my hands in my coat pockets. “I don’t know. I guess we take each situation as it comes.

He nodded, then sighed. “Well, I for one am sorry you got into trouble last night.”

“It’s not your fault.” I smiled and added, “Well, except that you broke my heart.” His blue eyes fixed on mine. “What did you tell Elise to make her think you were so upset about our breakup?”

“Nothing. Maybe she thinks you’re so wonderful anyone would be heartbroken.”

“She called me Mega Pork. You must have said something.”

“I told you what I said to her: You didn’t want to date a sophomore. It’s true after all —you told me that yourself.”

“Yeah, but that was . . . but I . . .” He gave Goliath another correcting tug. “That makes me a pig?”

“A mega pork, evidently.”

“We’re still going to the Tolo,” he said. “Don’t think you’ll get out of it just because you’re heartbroken.” His eyes narrowed. “And what did Elise mean by matchmaking, anyway? What matchmaking went on last night at that party?”

“None. Unless you count the time she told a guy if I didn’t have someone sweep me off my feet, I’d end up shaving my head and soliciting money at airports.”

“And you accuse me of being unromantic about dating.”

“Maybe I should come up with some logical plans.”

Josh gave me a smile that could not only melt ice, but turn the water into steam besides. I wondered if he did it on purpose. Did he know what his smile was capable of? Then I wondered why I had ever thought he was less than a fifteen.

Chapter 16

All day Monday I fielded comments from friends and acquaintances about doing time and my brush with the criminal element. I repeated the story so many times I was sick of hearing about it. My friends, however, thought it was intensely amusing and took every opportunity to tease me.

The ribbings got old, but at least everyone believed that I had been a sober innocent bystander. That’s why everyone thought it was so funny.

I didn’t see Elise much. She had apologized in the car on the way to school, but I couldn’t help wondering if Josh made her do it. She didn’t seem sincere. Right after her apology, she leaned around her seat. “I bet you met some interesting people though, didn’t you?”

“Oh, tons. Most of them wore blue uniforms.”

“What about Brandon?”

“What about him?”

“Did you like him?” Elise looked pointedly at Josh as she asked this.

“Elise, I don’t know anything about Brandon except that he drinks light beer and sings baritone.”

“Oh,” she said, drawing out the word. “Did he serenade you? How romantic. Tell me all about it.”

“Yes,” Josh said sweetly. “Tell us all about it.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” And then to change the subject I asked, “So what’s going on with Chad? Have you talked to him since he fled the crime scene?”

Elise’s voice turned caustic. “Yes, I talked to the King of Slime. I called him up and told him I never wanted to see his lousy, repulsive, cowardly face again. I still can’t believe he ran off without warning us that we were about to be incarcerated. I mean, how much trouble would it have been to yell, ‘Police’? But no. He left us there like sitting, underage, past-curfew ducks. And all that after he—” She seemed to remember Josh was sitting close by. “Well, you know.”

“I don’t know,” Josh said. “What else did he do?”

“All right, if you insist on knowing, he hit on Cassidy. Right in front of me. The creep.” Until that moment I thought she was talking about the drugs. “He did worse things than flirt.”

“Oh yeah,” Elise said, “and he was doing drugs too. What a loser. I should have listened to you, Josh. You knew all along he was a jerk.” Josh let out a grunt. “Remember those words next time I tell you something. I should have listened to you, Josh. I think you should say that several times a day.”

“Well, maybe I would have listened to you this time, but Cassidy gave Chad a ringing endorsement—how was I to know?”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “How did this become my fault? When did my judgment enter into your romantic decisions?”

“I know, I know,” Elise said. “You couldn’t have realized what a trash heap Chad was. I forgive you for misleading me.” I sent her a raised-eyebrow look. “I’ll try to pick out a better boyfriend for you next time.”

“Get someone tall, dark, and handsome—but throw in a dash of Bob for upstandingness.” She tilted her head considering her own words.

“Actually, Bob is tall and dark already. He’s also kinda cute in a geeky, smart-guy sort of way.” She looked up at the ceiling. “Sort of a pre-Bill Gates

. . .”

“But with bugs instead of computers,” I agreed.

“And he’s better looking,” Elise added, then her gaze shot to mine. “Not that I would ever try to snag him if you were dating him first.”

“We’re just friends,” I said. I couldn’t tell her, with Josh sitting right there that her brother was the one I wanted to date. I didn’t need her feeling even sorrier for me that my supposed romance with him had failed. I glanced at the rearview mirror. Josh’s eyes were framed in it, surveying me.

“It’s a moot point anyway,” Elise said with a dramatic sigh. “I’m grounded for a month. It’s my unjust reward for trying to improve your love life.”

“Feel free to strangle her,” Josh said. “I won’t stop you.”

But I shook my head and said, “Elise . . . Elise . . . Elise . . .”

I passed Brandon once in the hallway at school. He saw me and did a double take. I could tell he was trying to place me, but he didn’t say anything. I smiled and walked on. I hoped it drove him absolutely crazy.

I ran into Chad too. He looked away awkwardly. I wondered how much of our conversation from the party he remembered. I wondered if he would spend the rest of the school year pretending he didn’t see me when I walked by. I was glad he felt uncomfortable. He deserved to.

During PE Samantha and I were on the same wiffle-ball team. She usually ignored me during any stint together, but the first time we were in the outfield she came and stood next to me.

“I hear you asked Josh to the Tolo. You certainly believe in making advance reservations, don’t you?”

“It wasn’t like that.” I didn’t say more because I couldn’t describe what it actually was like between Josh and me. I still wasn’t sure myself.

“Getting a little desperate?”

I tried, I really did, to remember that Samantha and I had once been friends—that somewhere under her perfectly-styled hair and tanning-bed tan was a person I had liked. It didn’t do any good though. I couldn’t keep the contempt out of my voice. “Samantha, why do you constantly harp on me about Josh? What is your problem?”

“You’re my problem,” she said. “You and Elise.”

I let out a disbelieving huff. “What did we ever do to you?”

“You turned Josh against me.”

“Samantha, I think you’ve fall en off your cheerleading pyramid one too many times.” She threw a look of contempt right back at me. “Don’t act so innocent. I know you said bad things about me.”

“No, I didn’t.” And then, as soon as I said it, I realized I had. Elise and I had talked about Samantha in the car sometimes. We had a running joke about the cheerleading gene that enabled some girls to do leg kicks in tacky miniskirts without feeling any embarrassment. My guilt must have shown on my face.

“Sure, you didn’t,” Samantha said.

“I’ve never tried to make him dislike you.” At least not much. Granted I didn’t want him to like her. I’d hoped he wouldn’t. But I hadn’t gone out of my way to sabotage her.

“You know,” she said, her gaze icy and cool on mine, “It’s not only my fault that we aren’t friends anymore.” Then she walked away.

I watched her saunter across the outfield with an uncomfortable feeling growing in my stomach. Guilt. All the things I’d said about her to Josh had seemed justified at the time, harmless. But now they seemed petty. As though my subconscious had been waiting for an opportunity to ambush me, I began to remember other things, little incidents in junior high. The way Anjie and I had resented the time Samantha spent with her other friends. How sometimes we’d given her the cold shoulder because of it.

I told myself that things wouldn’t have turned out any different, even if Anjie and I had always been model friends. But that was the thing about second-guessing stuff you’ve done in the past. There’s no way to know for sure.

After school, Elise didn’t show up at my locker. She wasn’t at hers, either. I finally went out to the parking lot, watching for her as I walked. I hoped she hadn’t made up with the King of Slime.

I ran into Josh and two of his friends on the way out. “Hi, Cassidy,” he said. “How’s it going?”

“All right.”

“Troy, Jared, this is a friend of mine, Cassidy Woodruff.”

I said hello to them, and they helloed back. Then they talked about basketball to Josh. They wanted him to join PHS’s team this season.

“Ask for later work hours,” Troy told Josh. “It’s your parents’ store. What are they going to do, fire you?”

“You have all summer to make money,” Jared added. “It’s your senior year. You gotta play some ball.”

“Okay,” Josh said with a reluctant smile. “I guess I could try out.”

There was cheering and knuckle-bumping at this pronouncement. I shouldn’t have been happy. This meant when basketball season started, I wouldn’t be riding home with Josh anymore. But somehow I was happy for him anyway. Josh deserved to have fun.

When we got to the bottom of the stairs, Troy and Jared went their own way. Josh and I headed across the parking lot toward his car. Josh pulled his keys from his pocket and jingled them in his hand. “Now you can’t tell Elise I was embarrassed to introduce you to my friends. I just did.” He smiled triumphantly at me. “I’ll pin the blame for our breakup on you yet.”

“I never said you were embarrassed to let your friends know my name. I said you were embarrassed to let them know we dated. It’s still you’re fault.”

“If you want, I’ll tell them we dated.” Josh glanced over his shoulder, as if looking for more friends. “Is there something in particular you’d like me to say we did together? How about all those expensive restaurants I took you to because I’m such a nice guy?” I shifted my backpack on my shoulder. “I’m glad I’ve provided so much amusement in your life.” He gave me one of his warm smiles. “I brought you flowers too, because I’m soooo romantic.” I thought of my conversation with Samantha. “Speaking of dating, who did you tell about us going to the Tolo?” He shrugged. “A few people. Elise, some of my friends—you know, the ones I was too embarrassed to tell about us before.”

“Samantha?”

“Yeah, I told her too.”

“Why did you tell her?”

“She called me, and we were talking—”

“Samantha called you?” And she had the nerve to imply that I was throwing myself at him.

Josh flipped through his keys. “Yeah, she calls every once in awhile. Anyway, I got the feeling she was going to ask me to the dance, so I told her I was going with you. Why? What did Samantha say to you about it?”

“That I turned you against her.”

He cocked his head. “Why would she say that?”

I cleared my throat uncomfortably. “Um, I did make it clear I didn’t like her . . .”

“That has nothing to do with it. I’m not interested in Samantha.”

“Wrong number of brothers and sisters?”

“No. She always picks apart everybody and everything. After a while you get tired of hearing about the shortcomings of humanity. So rest at ease. You had nothing to do with it—not in that regard, anyway.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. “Well, that’s a good thing, because I did a lousy job picking out Elise’s last boyfriend.” We’d reached Josh’s car and Elise wasn’t there. “Where is my sister, anyway?” Josh and I both scanned the parking lot. We saw her off in the distance, walking through rows of cars towards us. As she came closer, I could see the anger on her face. Her jaw was clenched and her cheeks were flushed. Before we could say anything she said, “Did you hear?”

“Hear what?” I asked.

Elise didn’t answer. She just issued a stream of swearwords connected to Chad’s name.

Apparently they hadn’t gotten back together.

Josh opened his car door and slid inside. “Calm down and tell us what happened.” Elise threw her backpack into the car. “He told everyone that the only reason he went out with me was because I’m easy. He says he and a few of his friends know from personal experience.”

I got into my seat. “Elise, you didn’t—you haven’t . . .”

She glared at me. “No, I haven’t! I can’t believe this. Not even you believe in me.” She got into the car and slammed the door.

Josh and I exchanged looks, then he started the car. I leaned toward Elise. “If you say you didn’t, I believe you.”

“Oh, good. That’s one person out of the whole high school. Everyone else thinks I’m a slut. They’re all whispering about me.” She turned to Josh. “Beat Chad up.”

He guided the car through the parking lot. “Sure, Elise.”

“I’m serious. Don’t you care about defending my honor?”

“Why should I,” he asked, “when you never have?”

She blinked at him in surprise. “Josh!”

His voice was calm but intense. “If you’d been the least bit concerned with your honor, you would have lived like you had some, and then nobody would believe Chad when he tells lies about you.”

She folded her arms stubbornly and looked out her window. “You don’t care about me.”

“My picking a fight with Chad won’t rebuild your reputation.”

“It would teach him a lesson.”

“I’m more concerned with teaching you a lesson.”

“Me?” She gasped, her gaze back on him. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Yes, you did. And until you realize it, you’ll make the same mistakes and keep dragging everyone else through them too.” She pursed her lips. “I don’t drag everyone else through my mistakes.”

He took his eyes off the road for long enough to send her a piercing look. “You do whatever you want, whenever you want. If you want to break a few laws, you do. If you want to disappear so the entire family has to go out looking for you, you do. If you want to get wasted with losers like Chad, you do. You never think how it might turn out. You don’t care what everyone else goes through—how it makes the rest of us feel or look.” She frowned at him, arms still folded. “That’s what you really care about, isn’t it? How this makes you look. Well, what about me? I’m the one who has to walk through the halls while everyone stares at me. What about me?” Josh’s voice went quiet. “You know, Elise, I think your main problem in life is that you ask that question too often.” She turned sharply away from him and stared out the window again. For the rest of the car ride we were all silent.

* * *

After I was done with my homework, I went online to write Anjie. I noticed she’d posted a message to Samantha: Happy Birthday. She’d included pictures from Samantha’s party in fifth grade. The three of us were standing together, all smiles, arms draped over one another’s shoulders.

How had I forgotten it was Samantha’s birthday today? As a child I had looked forward to this date every year almost as much as my own birthday. It had always meant a fun outing with Samantha and Anjie. Instead, I had argued with her today.

I stared at those pictures for a full half an hour.

Then I wrote her a long message telling her I was sorry that things were the way they were between us. I didn’t know if it would change anything, but I had to write it anyway.

* * *

I hoped Josh and Elise would be back on good terms by morning. They weren’t. They both sat tense and silent in the car. “Don’t worry,” I told Elise. “It will blow over. These things always do.”